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To continue reading articles contained in this latest e-news, please scroll through the following pages. Ed Lucas: The Man Who Overcame Life's Greatest Obstacles

by Christopher Lucas

Optimism, humor, generosity, faith and tenacity rank chief among the qualities that we, as Irish- Americans, are famous for. I consider myself fortunate enough to have witnessed all of these and more up close in the person of my remarkable father, Ed Lucas.

I’m not the only one who has recognized these things in my Dad. He has been honored by organizations throughout the world, is a member of four different Halls of Fame, is an Emmy winning broadcaster and counts several U.S. Presidents as friends. The amazing part is that my father has done all of these things despite being struck blind in an accident at age 12.

Our family has roots in County Cork. They came to the United States in the 1860’s and settled in Jersey City. By the time my father was born in 1939, his neighborhood was packed with blue collar Irish families. My grandfather, Edward Lucas, Sr. worked on the docks, helping to construct battleships for the Navy. My grandmother, Rosanna, was a professional boxer - she boxed apples and oranges for the A&P. Neither were properly prepared for their baby to be born two months premature with severe vision problems.

Though his limited sight was a concern, my father was still able to enjoy a relatively normal life. Thanks to the tight knit Irish community and his many cousins, he never lacked for playmates or fun activities, including getting to indulge in his biggest passion; baseball.

Jersey City’s Roosevelt Stadium, located on the Hackensack River, was home to the New York Giants minor league baseball team, the Jersey City Giants. Parents and kids in my Dad’s neighborhood would routinely take the bus together to games. It was there that my father fell in love with the sport. He was even lucky enough to witness American history up close in the professional debut of Jackie Robinson in April of 1946 at Roosevelt Stadium. By the time he was 12, my father knew that he wanted to be a ballplayer or – at the very least – a broadcaster calling the games like his idols; Russ Hodges and Ernie Harwell.

As he would soon discover, God had a different path laid out for Ed Lucas.

On October 3, 1951, the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers would meet in a do or die game to decide who would be the National League pennant winner that year. Dad, who was in the 6th grade at the time, ran home after school to watch the final innings on the 12 inch black and white Philco TV at the family apartment in the Jersey City projects.

This was the same game where Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants hit his famous “shot heard ‘round the world”, a dramatic bottom of the ninth inning home run that helped Dad’s beloved Giants to victory.

My father was so excited about the miraculous win that he wanted to recreate the moment with friends, racing to a nearby vacant lot to play ball as the late afternoon dusk of October crept in.

It was a choice that would change his life forever.

Dad took his place on the mound as the pitcher and tossed a few warm-up strikes, assisted by the small amount of sunlight still available. The first batter connected with the ball, and that same twilight worked against him.

A screaming line drive shot back from the bat and sped towards my father’s face, giving him little time to react. The ball smashed squarely between his eyes, crushing the bridge of his nose, and severely damaging his already fragile retinas.

The hazy image of a white sphere as it raced towards him on a baseball diamond in the early October gloom was the last thing my father ever saw.

Trapped in darkness, Dad listened from his hospital bed as the doctors informed my grandmother and grandfather that the injury to his eyes was irreversible. He would never regain his sight.

My grandparents were devout Catholics. They prayed hard for a miracle. They even offered to each donate one eye to transplant so that my father might see again, something that was not medically possible in 1951.

Dad was doomed to spend the rest of my life as a blind person. The thought terrified him.

The only image he had of a blind man was of one on the streets of New York, standing on a corner with a cup and a cane begging for pennies from kind strangers. Was this to be the life he would live?

Sadness washed over my father, the darkness claimed his spirit.

He couldn’t even bear to listen to the World Series that year, which the Giants lost to the Yankees. Dad spent the next few months in depression and fear. His own personal winter matched the temperature outside.

In an attempt to cheer him up, my grandmother wrote letters to baseball stars. She asked for a note of support, or perhaps an autograph. What actually happened proved to be the miracle she had been praying for.

Player after player called on my Dad, encouraging him to embrace his passion for their game as a way to pick himself up.

Two men in particular stood out.

Leo Durocher, the fiery manager of the Giants, invited my father to be his personal guest in the dugout and clubhouse. Leo made sure that each one of his players came over to speak to him about persevering through life’s slumps.

Phil “Scooter” Rizzuto, The New York Yankees’ MVP shortstop, went even further.

Moved by my grandmother’s letter, Mr. Rizzuto became a personal life-long mentor and friend to my Dad. Scooter had been told that he was too short to play ball at a pro level, yet he never gave up. It was Phil who told my father to ignore the naysayers and to just follow his passion.

It was also Scooter who introduced my father to another man who became a great friend, the legendary Joe DiMaggio.

On the day he and “Joltin’ Joe” first met, my father was 13 years old and incredibly nervous. To put him at ease, the great DiMaggio asked my Dad to sit at his table with him. The first thing he said was, “So, Eddie, tell me, what’s your favorite Italian meal?” My father was expecting to talk baseball, not high cuisine, so he blurted out the first thing that popped into his head. “Well, every Tuesday my Mom opens up a can or two of Chef Boyardee. I like that!” Audible gasps could be heard, as those in the room who knew that Mr. DiMaggio was the first generation son of an Italian fisherman and chef figured he might be deeply offended. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, the Yankee hero threw back his head in laughter, patted my Dad on the head and shouted “Someone get this skinny Irish kid a plate of pasta e fagioli, pronto!”

Mr. Rizzuto helped to motivate my Dad to break down other barriers. He graduated with a broadcasting degree from Seton Hall University, and carved out a successful sixty year career covering the game he loves.

My father’s deep faith and the support of the Irish-American community also got him through a crisis even tougher than losing his sight.

In 1979, when I was 10 and my brother was 12, the court system took us away from my Dad, saying that a disabled man should not be raising kids all by himself, though that is what my father had been successfully doing since my Mom walked out on him almost a decade earlier.

This setback brought my father lower than he’d ever been before. He knew that he had to fight to prove his capability as a parent, but his spirit was crushed.

When word got out about the court case, it was his friends, associates and those who knew him from baseball who reached out to offer their support as he worked hard to bring his children back home.

Inspired by my grandmother’s efforts decades earlier, my father wrote to many of his heroes to help bring him out of his funk. One of those people was Sister Lucia Santos of Fatima, who had witnessed the famous apparition of Our Lady in 1917. Not only did Sister Lucia write back, she also got in touch with him, praying together for a positive outcome, if it was in God’s will. That began a correspondence and friendship that lasted until her death in 2005.

His prayers were answered in September, 1980 when – after many appeals – the Superior Court of New Jersey overturned the original decision and returned me and my brother to my Dad. It marked the first time in United States history that a disabled person won custody over a non-disabled spouse and one of the few times that a male won custody back from a female.

Last year, Major League Baseball honored my father on Opening Day for his record breaking 60th straight season of covering the game. This was the capper in a number of wonderful things that have come his way in the past decade or so.

In March of 2006, just before Saint Patrick’s Day, Dad and his wife, Allison, were married at home plate in the old Yankee Stadium in a ceremony that was televised live across the nation, since it was the first time ever such an event had occurred on that spot.

In 2009, the same year he won his first Emmy, my father was honored to be inducted into the Irish American Baseball Hall of Fame, located on 33rd Street in Manhattan, alongside Vin Scully, another one of his broadcasting heroes, and Walter O’Malley.

This Saint Patrick’s Day, the New Jersey Devils are saluting my father at their game that night, giving a portion of the proceeds from ticket sales to the Foundation for the Blind and Disabled which he established a few years ago as his way of giving back and providing hope and independence for others in need, just as he was given many times in his life.

The biggest blessing of them all came in 2014. Derek Jeter, retiring after a stellar career, decided to begin a publishing imprint with Simon & Schuster. He chose my father’s memoir as the first one to be released by his new brand. I was incredibly moved that my Dad asked me to co-write his story with him. As we sat and talked about his life, I gained a greater appreciation for the triumphs and struggles that the Lucas family had to go through, and how it helped to shape the person that my Dad and, by extension, I became.

In the past, my father thought about writing a book about his life and did make some inquiries. Almost every publisher asked him to remove references to his Irish-Catholic upbringing and his deep faith. They wanted a book that would be a “tell-all” dishing dirt from the clubhouse.

That’s not my Dad’s style, never has been.

To Derek Jeter’s credit, he never asked my Dad for any of those things. In fact, Derek – who himself is Irish-American - asked us to include more of the faith filled, uplifting stories.

I’m pleased to say that the book, called “Seeing Home: The Ed Lucas Story” has been critically acclaimed and appeared at the top of several lists since its release last spring. It is still in stores and selling well. Though the backdrop is baseball, it’s more than just a book about sports. It’s a book for anyone who has a dream in life and is being told that it’s impossible to reach. If my father can get there, so can they.

A feature film version of my Dad’s life story is in the works, with several A-List stars like Bradley Cooper and Stanley Tucci involved.

People always ask me how my father can cover baseball without being able to see the game.

My answer is simple; faith, friends, family, and a passion for something you love provide all the vision you’ll ever need to accomplish anything in life.

For more information on Ed Lucas and his remarkable story, visit www.EdLucasOnline.com

To contact Ed or Christopher for speaking engagements or other questions, contact [email protected] Padraig Pearse,

Poet, Playwrite, Barrister, Teacher, School Founder, Irish Revolutionary Leader

By

Raymond D. Aumack

The Rebel, Padraig Pearse, V 2

I that have vision and prophecy and the gift of fiery speech. I that have spoken with God on the top of His holy hill. And because I am of the people, I understand the people, I am sorrowful with their sorrow, I am hungry with their desire: My heart has been heavy with the grief of mothers, My eyes have been wet with the tears of children, I have yearned with old wistful men, And laughed or cursed with young men; Their shame is my shame, and I have reddened for it, Reddened for that they have served, they who should be free, Reddened for that they have gone in want, while others have been full, Reddened for that they have walked in fear of lawyers and of their jailors With their writs of summons and their handcuffs, Men mean and cruel!

Padraig Pearse was born on November 10, 1879. His father James, was a British stone worker who directed a successful business building and repairing the churches of Dublin. He was regularly employed and the financial circumstances of the household were quite comfortable. This was his second marriage and he blended three children with those bred with Margaret. His mother, Margaret Brady, was born into a famine family from County Meath that survived in Dublin. Padraig was one of four siblings. Many years ago someone who knew the family told me that Pearse’s mother was a native Irish speaker, a student of Irish language and culture, and had a keen instinct for politics. His father, James, was unschooled but self-educated. Their home was filled with books. The quest for an independent and united Ireland had again become a political ideal and this was a fire Margaret instilled in her children. Pearse’s boyhood heroes included Cuchulain, Wolfe Tonne, and Robert Emmit. Padraig was a prayerful, devout, and loyal Catholic throughout his life. He was a daily communicant even though his disappointment with the Church had a profound impact on the direction of his life.

He attended the Christian Brother’s school and went on to study Law at Kings Inn after which he accepted the call as Barrister in 1901. During this same period he started further studies.in Modern Languages and was awarded a BA in 1900 from the Royal University of Ireland. He studied for two of those years at the University College of Dublin.

Though he respected his training in Law, he wanted to learn about Ireland as a nation. He learned the Irish language as a teenager and developed a keen interest in the history, culture, language, and politics of his native country.

He had convinced himself that the Irish that he spoke in Dublin was a dialect of the classical Gaelic language. He felt that the pure language was spoken in the Connemara region of Connaught and studied that. Connaught was also the region of the country that was severely impacted by the Irish Starvation.

He also became involved with the Gaelic League at the age of sixteen and later on participated in “An Claidheamh Soluis” (The Sword of Light). Their goal was to expand the use of Gaelic in Irish life and, in particular, literature. Though politics was not in the curriculum of the Gaelic League that focused on language, history and culture, it was here that he would have met like- minded members with whom he could discuss politics. These were the best and brightest in the country and he had found his place among them. He learned as much as he shared and then some. His concerns and ideas found their way into his essays, poetry, and plays. Revolution was far removed from the goals of the Gaelic League but they unknowingly provided the hearth for the fire of liberty.

His stress with the Irish Church, the controller of all things Irish including the national schools, developed as the result of his concern that Irish history and culture were not included in the curriculum of the schools and colleges. The Church had demoted Irish history and culture courses from the curriculum at their national college, Maynooth. Pearse lobbied for these courses to be an integral part of the curriculum because the priests in training would have a major impact on the people of the areas where they worked. What use could priests be to developing Irish culture if they were taught little or nothing about it?

When his lobbying was not effective, he founded St. Edna’s School and a few years later, St. Ita’s School for Girls. Both schools included read and spoken Irish in their curriculum as well as courses in Irish history as well as the legends handed down from centuries past.

The original school was located at Cullenswood House, his family home, is now the home of another Gaelic School. Two years later St. Enda's School moved to The Hermitage in Rathfarnham, County Dublin, now home to the Pearse Museum.

The Volunteers and Home Rule In April 1912 John Redmond, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party that provided the power of the majority party in the House of Commons, committed the British government to introduce an Irish Home Rule Bill. Pearse gave the Bill a qualified welcome. He was one of four speakers, including Redmond, Joseph Devlin MP, leader of the Northern Nationalists, and Eoin MacNeill a prominent Gaelic Leaguer, who addressed a large Home Rule Rally in Dublin at the end of March 1912. Speaking in Irish, Pearse said he thought that "a good measure can be gained if we have enough courage", but he warned, "Let the English understand that if we are again betrayed, there shall be red war throughout Ireland.” By this time in his career, Pearse was well- recognized for his oratorical and writing skills. This is significant because he was to be part of band of outstanding writers and orators. In November 1913 Pearse was invited to the inaugural meeting of the Irish Volunteers—formed in reaction to the creation of the Ulster Volunteers—whose aim was to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland. In an article entitled "The Coming Revolution" (November 1913) Pearse wrote: As to what your work as an Irish Nationalist is to be, I cannot conjecture; I know what mine is to be, and would have you know yours and buckle yourselves to it. And it may be (nay, it is) that yours and mine will lead us to a common meeting-place, and that on a certain day we shall stand together, with many more beside us, ready for a greater adventure than any of us has yet had, a trial and a triumph to be endured and achieved in common.

It is clear from that Pearse’s thinking was already drifting to the necessity of a violent revolution to achieve his aims.

The Home Rule Bill failed to pass the House of Lords, but the Lords' diminished power under the Parliament Act 1911 meant that the Bill could only be delayed, not stopped. It was placed on the statute books with Royal Assent in September 1914, but its implementation was suspended for the duration of the First World War. John Redmond feared that his "national authority" might be circumvented by the Volunteers open proclivity to a violent uprising and decided to try to take control of the new movement. Despite opposition from the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Volunteer Executive agreed to share leadership with Redmond and a joint committee was set up. Pearse was opposed Redmond’s plans and was to write: The leaders in Ireland have nearly always left the people at the critical moment; they have sometimes sold them. The former Volunteer movement was abandoned by its leaders; O'Connell recoiled before the cannon at Clontarf; twice the hour of the Irish revolution struck during Young Ireland days and twice it struck in vain, for Meagher hesitated in Waterford, Duffy and McGee hesitated in Dublin. Stephens refused to give the word in '65; he never came in '66 or '67. I do not blame these men; you or I might have done the same. It is a terrible responsibility to be cast on a man, that of bidding the cannon speak and the grapeshot pour.

The Volunteers split, one of the issues being support for the Allied and British war effort. A majority followed Redmond into the National Volunteers in the belief that this would ensure Home Rule on their return. Pearse, exhilarated by the dramatic events of the European war, wrote in an article in December 1915: It is patriotism that stirs the people. Belgium defending her soil is heroic, and so is Turkey ...... It is good for the world that such things should be done. The old heart of the earth needed to be warmed with the red wine of the battlefields.

Such august homage was never before offered to God as this, the homage of millions of lives given gladly for love of country.

In fact, the Volunteers were practically decimated because so many trained troopers joined with the British forces on the blood-soaked battlefields of France. This obviously frustrated the plans of having a national volunteer army at their disposal for a potential revolution.

To be fair, from the perspective of the troopers, it made sense. They really did not have the same vision of the rebellious leaders. It was an era that celebrated the glory of “manhood” participating in life and death battles. No one had previously encountered the horrors of war nor anticipated that the great life and death struggle would result in the deaths of the majority of the volunteers. They felt instead that they would return as heroes and all the good things of the life of a hero.

Irish Republican Brotherhood In December 1913 Bulmer Hobson swore Pearse into the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), an organization dedicated to the overthrow of British rule in Ireland and its replacement with an Irish Republic, by any means deemed necessary. He was soon invited onto the IRB's Supreme Council by Tom Clarke. Clarke was known as a brilliant military strategist. Pearse was then one of many people who were members of both the IRB and the Volunteers. When he became the Volunteers' Director of Military Organization in 1914 he was the highest ranking Volunteer in the IRB membership, and instrumental in the latter's commandeering of the remaining minority of the Volunteers for the purpose of rebellion. By 1915 he was on the IRB's Supreme Council, and its secret Military Council, the core group that began planning for a rising while war raged on the European Western Front. On August 1, 1915, Pearse gave a graveside oration at the funeral of the Fenian Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. It closed with the words: Our foes are strong and wise and wary; but, strong and wise and wary as they are, they cannot undo the miracles of God who ripens in the hearts of young men the seeds sown by the young men of a former generation. And the seeds sown by the young men of '65 and '67 are coming to their miraculous ripening today. Rulers and Defenders of the Realm had need to be wary if they would guard against such processes. Life springs from death; and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations. The Defenders of this Realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but, the fools, the fools, the fools! – They have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.

This was the clarion call to the entire country for preparation and action. Little did Pearse know how prophetic his words would be in less than a year into the future.

Easter Rising and Death Pearse was chosen by the leading IRB man Tom Clarke to be the spokesman for the Rising. It was Pearse who, on behalf of the IRB shortly before Easter in 1916, issued the orders to all Volunteer units throughout the country for three days of maneuvers beginning Easter Sunday, which was the signal for a general uprising. When Eoin MacNeill, the Chief of Staff of the Volunteers, learned what was being planned without the promised arms from Germany, he countermanded the orders via newspaper, causing the IRB to issue a last-minute order to go through with the plan the following day, greatly limiting the numbers who turned out for the rising. When the Easter Rising eventually began on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, it was Pearse who read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic from outside the General Post Office, the headquarters of the rising. After six days of fighting, heavy civilian casualties and great destruction of property, Pearse issued the order to surrender. Pearse and fourteen other leaders, including his brother Willie, were court- martialed and executed by firing squad. Thomas Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh and Pearse himself were the first of the rebels to be executed, on the morning of May 3, 1916. Pearse was 36 years old at the time of his death. Roger Casement, who had tried unsuccessfully to recruit an insurgent force among Irish-born prisoners of war from the Irish Brigade in Germany, was hanged in London the following August.

Sir John Maxwell, the General Officer commanding the British forces in Ireland, sent a telegram to H.H. Asquith, then Prime Minister, advising him not to return the bodies of the Pearse brothers to their family, saying, "Irish sentimentality will turn these graves into martyrs' shrines to which annual processions will be made, which would cause constant irritation in this country.” Maxwell also suppressed a letter from Pearse to his mother, and two poems dated 1 May 1916. He submitted copies of them also to Prime Minister Asquith, saying that some of the content was "objectionable".

Reputation

Largely as a result of a series of political pamphlets that Pearse wrote in the months leading up to the Rising, he soon became recognised as the main voice of the Rising. In the middle decades of the 20th century Pearse was idolised by Irish nationalists as the supreme idealist of their cause. With the outbreak of conflict in Northern Ireland in 1969 Pearse's legacy was used by the Provisional IRA. However, Pearse's reputation and writings have been subject to criticism by some historians, who have seen him as fanatical, psychologically unsound and ultra-religious. As Conor Cruise O'Brien, one time Labour TD and former unionist politician, put it: "Pearse saw the Rising as a Passion Play with real blood." Others have defended Pearse, suggesting that to blame him for the violence in Northern Ireland was unhistorical and a distortion of the real spirit of his writings. Though the passion of those arguments has waned in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, his complex personality still remains a subject of controversy for those who wish to debate the evolving meaning of Irish nationalism. Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern described Pearse as one of his heroes and displayed a picture of Pearse over his desk in the Department of the Taoiseach. Pearse's mother Margaret Pearse served as a TD in Dáil Éireann in the 1920s. His sister Margaret Mary Pearse also served as a TD and Senator. Dissenters There is another perspective of the Pearse rebellion that should be noted, very different from what has already been written. It was the prevailing thought in Dublin at the time and in the interest of balance and to avoid the threat of glorifying violence, it should be noted.

By the time World War One had started, Patrick Pearse had taken an extreme political stance. He wanted full Irish independence – not what the suspended Home Rule Bill of 1912 offered. He did not support the part Ireland played in the war effort – he saw the 250,000 volunteers to the British war effort as men who had been taken in by British propaganda. He also split the Irish Volunteers. He took a small number of these men with him when John Redmond gave his agreement to suspend the Home Rule Bill until the war was over. By now, Patrick Pearse had become extreme. He published a pamphlet called “The Murder Machine” which was a severe condemnation of the Irish educational system. He also realized that with London totally focused on the war in Europe, the time was ripe to overthrow British rule in Ireland.

However, in this respect, Padraig Pearse was totally wrong. The young men who had volunteered to fight in the war had done so because they wanted to. Patrick Pearse had no mass support in Ireland whereas John Redmond had far more public support in the south. Patrick Pearse also assumed that all those in southern Ireland were completely against British rule – this was not so either. What Patrick Pearse failed to recognise, was that many people in Dublin itself relied on the British for work. They may not have liked this, but work brought in money regardless of where or who it came from.

Those who participated in the Easter Uprising of 1916 were in the minority. Patrick Pearse decided to take command of the rebellion and he read out the declaration of independence at the General Post Office. Pearse also was one of the signatories of “Poblacht na h-Eireann” (To the People of Ireland).

If Pearse expected the actions of the rebels in Dublin to spark off other uprisings in other Irish cities and towns, he was mistaken. In Dublin, the people of the city failed to offer the rebels any support. In fact, some Dubliners took the opportunity of the rebellion to loot the shops in Sackville Street. The Uprising was doomed from the start.

Heritage

The prophesy proclaimed by Pearse atthe Grave or O’Donovan Rossa was eventually fulfilled. During the march to Kilmainham Jail the prisoners walked smartly with heads held high. However, the jeers and divisiveness from the crowd that lined the streets told a different story. It was after the assassinations of the leaders, especially the assassination of the already dying James Connolly, tied to a stretcher and stood upright against the prison wall and shot to death, that aroused the spirit of the people.

The very existence of Ireland as a nation is their heritage, though they never lived to see it. Tributes to Pearse are too numerous to mention but this kindly, passionate, humble man….a teacher… writer…. poet….a profoundly spiritual man…..a lover of his country and his fellow citizens, gave the last drop of his blood for their sakes. He thought on a different level, from the perspective of a faith in Christ that was integrated with every breath of his life, that he was willing to give his own life to insure the future of his country. He knew he would rise from his own death and his country would rise with him.

He stands alone at the pinnacle of the pantheon of Irish heroes.

The Rebel, v. 1

I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow, That have no treasure but hope, No riches laid up but a memory Of an Ancient glory. My mother bore me in bondage, in bondage my mother was born, I am of the blood of serfs; The children with whom I have played, the men and women with whom I have eaten, Have had masters over them, have been under the lash of masters, And, though gentle, have served churls; The hands that have touched mine, the dear hands whose touch is familiar to me, Have worn shameful manacles, have been bitten at the wrist by manacles, Have grown hard with the manacles and the task-work of strangers, I am flesh of the flesh of these lowly, I am bone of their bone, I that have never submitted; I that have a soul greater than the souls of my people’s masters.

The Bold Fenian Men, the American Connection - 1916

Is iad a do an tine beo - it is they who lit the everlasting fire. So it was said of the men and women of Easter Week, 1916, inspiring an orchestral piece by Seán Ó Riada in 1966. But the Easter Rising was not exclusively the result of the rising of dragons’ teeth sewn by Tom Clarke, Pádraig Pearse, James Connolly and the others of the seven signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. “1916” was brought to you by Ireland’s conspiratorial élite, the

Irish Republican Brotherhood (the IRB). But whence the IRB?

Thomas Cahill, author of How the Irish Saved Civilization, contends that history is learned in pieces, because pieces is all we have of the past, letters, photographs, contemporary accounts, etc. Nollaig Ó Gadhra points out that these pieces can be assembled to reveal patterns, which can demonstrate a continuity of ideas; one of these constants is that, so long as there has been an Irish diaspora, there have been Irish exiles who have made it their business to support the cause of Irish freedom at home, and to do what they could to further it abroad. After the defeat at Kinsale (3rd/4th January 1602), Hugh O’Neill was writing to the King of Spain, requesting to be landed in the North with the Irish regiment then stationed in Flanders. In the aftermath of the (later broken) Treaty of Limerick, most of Patrick Sarsfield’s Irish Army became the Irish Brigade in the service of France – “The Flight of the Wild Geese ”(22nd December 1691). The numerous Irish Brigade regiments left their mark, one notable deed being the decisive charge by the Irish Brigade at the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745, where the Irish battle cry was “Cuimnidh ar Luimneach agus ar Feall na Sasanach” (Remember Limerick and the English treachery). Since that time, Irishmen who leave Ireland to seek military experience in the armies of England’s enemies or potential enemies, have been known as “Wild Geese.” Much to England’s sorrow, America, as well as France, Austria,

Spain, and others, welcomed the Wild Geese.

An Gorta Mór, the Great Hunger of mid-19th century Ireland, which saw the population reduced by a half, was proof positive of the necessity, as Wolfe Tone had said in the 18th century, to break the connection with England (the “evil empire” to most 19th century Americans). John Mitchel, in An Apology for the British Government in Ireland, as well as in the pages of his newspaper, The United Irishman, would make the case in a most compelling manner that England had encouraged and aggravated the famine for the purpose of thinning the Irish population. Archbishop “Dagger John” Hughes of New York stated that the food, which could have fed the Irish, was “exported to a better market, and left the people to die of famine…” [See Thomas Gallagher, Paddy’s Lament] The “Famine” period would take on, for the Irish of the 19th and 20th centuries, the same psychological significance as the Nazi period has for the Jews of the 20th and 21st centuries.

After the failure of the Rising in 1848, the locus of Irish revolutionary activity had shifted from Dublin to New York. A conspiratorial élite of Irish exiles sought to create an Irish

Republican military force. Seven men, Michael Doheny, John O’Mahony, Michael Corcoran, Thomas J. Kelly, James Roche, Oliver Byrne and Patrick O’Rourke, gathered in the law office of Michael Doheny of Tipperary (Chairman, Emmet Monument Association), to play their part in the future liberation of Ireland. As it would later be articulated by Brian O’Higgins in the Wolfe Tone Annual, the lesson of history was clear to these men: Ireland had made progress toward freedom only through physical force, or the threat of physical force. This was the cornerstone of the belief and purpose of The Bold Fenian Men – The Fenian Faith.

In part through the agency of Irish revolutionaries, the 69th Regiment of New York had been brought into existence on 12th October 1851 (Michael Doheny its first Lieutenant Colonel). Nor was the 69th the only such Irish revolutionary unit in the organized militias of the several States. Realizing that activity in America would be futile without cooperation in Ireland, these exiles, the executive committee of the Emmet Monument Association, meeting in New York, reached out to their former comrades-in-arms at home, with the result that Joseph Denieffe, Thomas Clarke Luby and James Stephens brought into existence the Irish Revolutionary / Republican Brotherhood (the IRB) in Dublin, Saint Patrick's

Day 1858.

The IRB, which brought about the Rising in Dublin and the Proclamation of the Irish Republic during Easter Week 1916, can trace its origin to this band of 1848 exiles, meeting first at 6 Centre Street, and then often in the Hibernian Hall managed by Michael Corcoran (of the 69th New York State Militia), near Saint Patrick's old Cathedral on Prince Street in New York

City.

“The Wandering Hawk” Stephens became the Head Center of the IRB in Ireland, and the scholar O’Mahony was Head Center of the organization in America. O’Mahony, would later command the 99th New York State Militia “Phoenix Brigade” in the American Civil War. It was another “Fenian” regiment, but of brigade strength, consisting of some forty (40) independent companies. O’Mahony, in 1858, was already a scholar of international repute, thanks in part to the wide acclaim for his translation of Geoffrey Keating’s History of Ireland from early classical modern Irish into English. He was inspired by the example of na fianna, the élite national guard of third century Ireland. He coined the word Fenian for the brotherhood in America. Soon the terms Fenian and IRB became interchangeable. The Fenian Brotherhood grew exponentially after the refusal of Colonel Michael Corcoran to parade the 69th for the visiting (so-called) “Prince of Wales,” 11th October 1860, and the many ceremonies en route of the ’48 man, Terrence Bellew M’Manus, who died in San Francisco in 1861, and was eventually buried in Ireland. This growth was compounded in both armies during the American Civil War, as well as, thanks in large part to the exertions of John Devoy, among Irish in the British Army.

Thomas J. Kelly was part of the founding leadership of what would become known in song and story as “The Bold Fenian Men,” and has the distinction of being a hero of two countries. A native of Mountbellew, County Galway, and, like Ken Tierney, educated in Saint Jarlath’s College, Tuam, where among his teachers was Michael J. McCann, a regular contributor to the Nation (edited originally by the great nationalist poet Thomas Davis). McCann wrote “O’Donnell Abú”, the stirring war song set in 16th century Ireland, which was so popular among Irish throughout the world, that it was regarded, for a time, as a virtual Irish national anthem. Thomas Kelly had seen the Repeal Movement (attending, with some 40,000 others, a “Monster Meeting” at Caltra, on 21st May 1843), the Great Hunger and the Rising of 1848 (with trails, speeches from the dock, and exile of many leaders) first hand, but, like Robert Emmet in 1798, was apparently too young, and too careful, to attract the attention of the Constabulary in 1848.

After his classical, theological and nationalist education at Saint Jarlath’s, where he mastered not only the Gospel according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but also the Gospel of Tone, Thomas Kelly apprenticed to the printer’s trade in Kelly’s, the business of a relation in Loughrea. His apprenticeship complete, he emigrated to America, the land of opportunity, in 1851. Directly, he fell in with 1848 exiles in New York; his rapid acceptance into the leadership of the Republican movement is testimony not only to his ability and dedication, but also to the credentials/recommendations which must have accompanied him from ’48 men at home.

Thomas Kelly participated both in the Emmet Monument Association and in the New York State Militia (1851-57). Although he was in the New York State Militia, and associated with Doheny and Corcoran, both officers of the 69th, in the absence of definitive documentation we cannot say for certain that Kelly was then in the 69th. He was assigned to help Michael Doheny organize 75th New York State Militia (the Fourth Regiment of the intended new “Irish Brigade of Young Ireland”). Enlisted rosters from the 1850s have not survived, not in the New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs, nor in the archives of the New York Historical Society, nor in the records of the 69th Regiment of New York. So, while all the circumstantial evidence all points to the 69th, it cannot be claimed as a certainty (in 1858, the 75th was subsumed into the 69th, ergo Kelly can be, and is, claimed by the 69th - per the Chief of Army History). What is certain, however, is that, thanks to the opportunity presented by the New York State Militia, Thomas Kelly was both a student and a practitioner of the military art.

A co-founder of the Fenian Brotherhood, Thomas Kelly later moved to Tennessee to start/edit the Nashville Democrat. [The large number of Fenians found in Nashville after the war suggests that he busied himself with more than journalism.] It is said that the flag on his newspaper office was the last “Stars and Stripes” in Nashville to come down after the secession of Tennessee.

Like many other Fenians, Thomas Kelly answered Lincoln’s call for volunteers to fight to preserve the United States. A personal friend and political/conspiratorial associate of Michael Corcoran, Thomas Kelly was preparing to return to New York to the 69th, when he was introduced to a new Irish regiment, the 10th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and threw in his lot with them. The 10th Ohio was originally enlisted for three months, and then re-enlisted for an additional three years. A member of Company “C”, his military knowledge and ability having been recognized, Kelly was promoted to Orderly Sergeant. Although receiving what should have been a “million dollar wound” in the Battle of Carnifex Ferry in Western Virginia, 10th September 1861, Thomas Kelly volunteered to return to duty before the end of the year. Kelly had been shot in the jaw by a bullet that destroyed (shattered) part of his jaw and three teeth and then, narrowly escaping the carotid artery, lodged in the muscles of the left side of his neck, from which it was removed surgically. It is possible that the goatee, which appears in all of his pictures was not only in fashion in the 1860s, but also hid what could have been a disfiguring scar.

On 29th September 1861, Colonel William H. Lytle, Commander of the 10th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, wrote to the Adjutant General of Ohio, C.P. Buckingham, stating that there was a vacancy in the office of 2nd Lieutenant in Company “C” and that Thomas J. Kelly had been nominated to fill the vacancy by a large majority of the company, and that Kelly had conducted himself with the utmost gallantry during the entire battle at Carnifex Ferry. He also stated that Kelly, as Orderly Sergeant, was intimately acquainted with the internal economy of the company and the duties of the officer position. He requested that the Governor issue Kelly his commission without delay, despite the fact that Kelly had gone to the military hospital in Cincinnati.

Kelly was commissioned in January 1862, and later secunded to the staff of Major General George Thomas (later “The Rock of Chickamauga”) of the XIV Corps, United States Army of the Cumberland, as a Signal Officer. He was promoted to Captain on 17th March 1863, becoming Chief Signal Officer. During this period his regimental commander requested his reassignment back to the 10th Ohio, in order that he might take command of one of the regiment’s manoeuvre battalions (which would probably have entailed a at least a temporary promotion to major or lieutenant colonel). General Thomas refused the request, writing that he could not spare Kelly from his duties. [The Army of the United States had a “regimental” system, whereby personnel secunded to other units were still carried on the rolls. On 30th April 1863, Kelly was administratively transferred, on the books of the 10th Ohio from Company “C” to Company “I”, while continuing to serve at XIV Corps Headquarters. It should also be noted that, as Chief Signal Officer Kelly was well situated to maintain communications with Fenians in the Army of the Cumberland.] Unfortunately, General Thomas’ need for Kelly’s services was trumped by a new Army regulation requiring that all officers of the Signal Corps have university degrees by the following February (and a war on!). This being the case (although too late for battalion command), Kelly again requested transfer back to his regiment. On 19th August 1863 he was ordered to return to the "Bloody Tinth" as Captain, Company “I”, from which he was later mustered out with the rest of the 10th Ohio. His military service continued in the Fenian Brotherhood, the Irish Republican Army. American Fenian uniform buttons bore the letters “IRA”.

With the end of the American Civil War in 1865, the Fenian Brotherhood in America sent its most trusted military officer, Captain Thomas Kelly, home to Ireland to assess the prospects for a Rising, and to advise on military matters. By summer 1865, John Devoy was convinced that the time was ripe for a rising. The Fenian Chief, James Stephens, was captured in Dublin; Kelly, with John Devoy and others, rescued Stephens from Richmond Gaol – much to the consternation of Dublin Castle. [Fenian General John H. Gleason, was ad interim Head Center (COIR), until after the springing of Stephens.] Kelly arranged their harrowing escape from Ireland, via a collier to Kilmarnock in Scotland, thence by rail to London, whence to Paris and ultimately to America. In May 1866 Stephens, then in New York, appointed Thomas Kelly his deputy. After the visionary organizer Stephens stepped down, 29th December 1866, now Colonel Kelly, the pragmatic military man, became COIR - Chief Organizer of the Irish Republic (Virtually Established) and leader of the Fenian Brotherhood / IRB. Kelly promptly sailed for England and Ireland in January 1867, to assess the situation, organize, and plan for a Rising.

Colonel Kelly and Captain Timothy Deasy were arrested in Manchester. On 18th September 1867, they were rescued from a prison van by a group of bold Fenian men in what has become know to history as “the smashing of the van.” During the rescue a policeman, Sergeant Brett, was accidentally killed. Kelly and Deasy escaped to America. There were nearly eighty arrests, and twenty-seven charged. Five Irishmen, none of whom had fired the shot, were condemned to death in a hasty show trial. One turned out to be an uninvolved Royal Marine, who, after a campaign by journalists who had attended the trial, was released. Another, Captain Edward O’Meagher Condon (US citizen and veteran of Corcoran’s Irish Legion), at the request of the American Consul, had his sentence commuted to life at hard labor – Condon would be released eleven years later at the request of US President Hayes - who acted on a unanimous resolution of Congress. Later author of The Irish Race in America, he now lies in Calvary Cemetery. At the trial in Manchester, Condon was asked if he had anything to say, he replied, “I have nothing to retract – nothing to take back. I can only say ‘God Save Ireland.’”

“God Save Ireland!” repeated the three men beside him. Those men, William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin and Captain Michael O’Brien (American citizen and Civil War veteran) were hanged on the cold damp, foggy morning of 23rd November 1867 – the Manchester Martyrs. T.D. Sullivan would be inspired to write “God Save Ireland”, which became a virtual national anthem for Ireland until superseded by “Amhrán na bFian” during Easter Week 1916.

Patriot Graves are the hallowed resting places of heroes, and as such due all respect. The proper keeping of such graves is an obligation of the living, not only to the occupants of such graves, but also to our posterity, who might better remember and learn from the example of our heroes, and of those who keep their memory green.

The original headstone on the grave of Colonel Thomas J. Kelly of the Fenian Brotherhood (6th January 1833 – 5th February 1908), was found, after the 2007 Friends of Irish Freedom / Sean Oglaigh na hÉireann 1916 Commemoration, to be melting under the impact of a century of acid rain; action was needed lest the only remaining locator of the grave of Thomas Kelly would be in a cemetery computer data base. Under the leadership of Martin Lyons of Glenamaddy, a group of kindred spirits (including Kevin Kennedy of Galway, Martin Galvin, Esq. of the Bronx, Liam Murphy of the Irish Brigade Association, and Charlie Laverty of The Moy in Tyrone, President Emeritus, New York Irish History Roundtable – assisted by the Admiral Worden Post 150 of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, and by Susan Olsen and the staff of Woodlawn Cemetery) decided to replace Thomas Kelly’s stone with a more durable polished granite stone befitting an American soldier and Irish hero, in order that Kelly might better be remembered on both sides of the Atlantic, and wherever green is worn.

Their research was aided by a number of people, most notably: Anne Tierney and Tommy Gavin in Galway; Lieutenant Colonel Bob Bateman, Deputy Commander, 88th Brigade, New York Guard (lineal descendant of the 88th New York Volunteer Infantry of the Irish Brigade of the United States Army of the Potomac); Colonel James Tierney, Regimental Historian, 69th Regiment of New York; Mickey McPhillips in Fermanagh; and, Robert McLernan of Virginia (researching at the US National Archives in Washington, DC).

The families of Martin Lyons and of Thomas Kelly go back for generations, and are related by marriage. Martin’s grandfather, Michael Lyons, a Fenian, knew Thomas Kelly, which fact was related by his own grandmother, Catherine Moore Lyons, who told him how Kelly had escaped to America, smuggled in the hay of a wagon driven to Galway by the mother. The dedication ceremony for the new stone in The Woodlawn Cemetery on 31st May 2008, was attended by Bernadette Tierney of Riverdale in The Bronx, a great-grand-niece of Thomas Kelly. In 1967, a commemorative plaque was placed on Kelly’s house (now a pub), on the square in Mountbellew, by Kitty O’Grady, a relation of Thomas Kelly.

Of the Fenian Brotherhood / IRB, co-founded, and, for a time, led by Thomas Kelly, American soldier and Irish revolutionary, it can truly be said, “Is iad a do an tine beo.” It is the fire they lit which continues to inspire. Professor Eoin McKiernan, former Editor of J.J. McGarrity’s newspaper The Irish Republic, and later founder of the Irish American Cultural Institute, felt that Ireland’s best chance for freedom was probably the Fenians – The Bold Fenian Men.

By 20 June 1867, a new organization, Clan na Gael, was founded in New York by a New York Herald journalist, Arctic explorer and the world’s first weather forecaster, Jerome J. Collins of Cork City, for the purpose of bringing together the disparate factions within the Fenian Brotherhood. [Devoy’s Post Bag, Vol. I, p. 5] Shortly, the future leader of the Clan, John Devoy, together with Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, came from Ireland with a reputation for decisive action and impressive organizational skills. He joined Clan na Gael in 1870, and soon electrified the world by raising funds and organizing the rescue if the Fenian prisoners in Australia, using the whaler CATALPA. In later years Thomas Kelly participated in “Manchester Martyrs” commemorations organized by Clan na Gael in New York City. Devoy and Clan na Gael later supported the Irish War for Independence. It was John Devoy who sent Tom Clarke back to Ireland, from New York to organize what would later become the 1916 Raster Rising.

Captain Timothy Deasy (of Clonakilty, Co. Cork, and Company “I”, “Irish 9th” Regiment of Massachusetts), received a new granite stone on his grave in Immaculate Conception Cemetery in Lawrence, Massachusetts on 23rd November 1992, the dedication organized by Bob Bateman, great-grandson of Timothy’s brother Cornelius – also a Fenian; the principal speaker was Derek Warfield of the Wolfe Tones, himself the grandson of a Fenian.

[Thanks to Mike and Tom Costello and the Fenian Graves Association, and to Cumann na Saoirse Náisiunta, a more complete story of Thomas Kelly, and of the dedication of his stone on 31st May 2008, will appear later on the www.irishfreedom.net website. The event received full-page coverage in two consecutive issues of The IRISH ECHO newspaper. This event will also be featured in a video documentary about the Irish in the American Civil War, produced by Michael McPhillips. A complete report will be sent to Éamonn Griffin in Ireland, who attended the event on behalf of the National Graves Association in Ireland.]

At Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, at the grave of O’Donovan Rossa in 1915, Pádraig Pearse would say,

“They have left us our Fenian dead, ...”

Glory O, Glory O, to the bold Fenian men

Ar dheis lámh Dé go raibh a n-anama uasaile

Go saoradh Dia Éire! ###

[Update: On Easter Sunday, 5th April 2015, during the 1916 Easter Rising Commemoration of Cumann na Saoirse, Náisiúnta, in The Woodlawn Cemetery, a special tribute to Colonel Thomas Kelly was read, and a wreath placed at his grave, on behalf of his descendants, by Erica Veil of Troy, New York, great-great- granddaughter of Colonel Thomas Kelly. She was joined by Bob Bateman (former AOH National Historian, and member of Div. 8, Lawrence, Mass., currently of Div. 18, Peekskill, NY), collateral descendant of Captain Timothy Deasy - an historic occasion, the first time members of the Kelly and Deasy families participated, together, in a 1916 Easter Rising commemoration.

The 1916 Easter Rising Commemoration program continued, as on most previous years, in the (downstairs) private dining room of The Heritage, on McLean Avenue (Woodlawn) in Yonkers. The program consisted of various readings (including the “Countdown to 2016”), both in Irish and in English, as well as, delightfully, music and song by Mary Courtney (of Morning Star), including the “Foggy Dew” (written by Canon Charles O’Neill (1887-1963), a parish priest of Kilcoo, and later of Newcastle, County Down, sometime after 1919).]

Post Script to 2008: On Saturday, 31st May 2008, which was forecast to be a rainy afternoon, a large number of intrepid souls braved the sometimes heavy rain to hear Martin Lyons, lifelong Irish Republican activist, open the ceremonies to dedicate the new stone marker on the grave of his kinsman and fellow Galway man, the Fenian leader, Colonel Thomas J. Kelly, in The Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Among those in attendance were a 91-year old native of Mountbellew, and Bernadette Tierney, a collateral descendant of Kelly.

Participating in the program were all well-known supporters of the cause of Irish Freedom including: the main speaker, Liam Ó Murchadha, former Editor of the National Hibernian Digest; Martin Galvin, who read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic; Tommy Enright who explained his choice of music for the occasion; Charlie Laverty, President Emeritus of the New York Irish History Round Table and historian for the Fenian Graves Project; Éamonn Griffin of the National Graves Association, who traveled from County Wexford for the occasion; and, Kevin Kennedy, who laid a wreath at the new headstone that was unveiled by Martin Lyons.

American Civil War re-enactors in full 1863 uniform from a variety of regiments including 150th New York, 11th Connecticut and 27th New York, under the command of Peter Bedrosian, mustered behind the colors of the 150th New York to perform the very stirring graveside ritual of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) for their fallen comrade, Thomas Kelly. Kelly was a member of a New York City GAR Post, which had placed a marker on his grave. The GAR ritual included the firing of three volleys (blanks) from some 21 muskets.

The stone was also blessed by a priest, arranged by Kevin Kennedy.

The 16 yr old Eugene Hogan Bender, winner of the 2007, North American (under 16) Fiddle Championship of the Comhaltas Ceoltoirí Éireann, closed the ritual with a most memorable rendition of “The Bold Fenian Men”, followed by a verse of “God Save Ireland!”

Officer S Hogan from the New York Police Emerald Society Pipe Band then played “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” as a lament for Kelly.

Martin Galvin, one-time Editor of The Irish People, gave a brief, but stirring, oration, in which he cited John Devoy’s comments, in Recollections of an Irish Rebel, regarding the death of Thomas Kelly, who had been in declining health in his last years and died in relative obscurity. Devoy pointed out that one of Ireland’s greatest heroes deserved better, and Galvin said that Devoy should be glad that Kelly finally got the honors he deserved, albeit a century later.

Special thanks are due to Mike Bennett and the Admiral Worden Camp 150 of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War for procuring the new, polished granite stone for Kelly, and to Ed Dunn of the Board of Directors of the Veteran Corps of the 69th Regiment of New York and to Jim Stagnitta of All Faiths Monuments of Glendale, New York for arranging for the inscription to be cut into the stone.

The event was declared closed by chairman Martin Lyons after the Last Post was played.

The Mark and the Void By Paul Murray Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux 2015 Isbn 978‐0‐86547‐755‐1 459 pp

Over the past several years there have been more than a handful of books written about Irish financial problems, several of which were reviewed in this column. It is a well‐ known fact that the financial crisis in Ireland was the result of three factors: highly questionable banking practices, shameless property development, and a government which was lax beyond belief when it came to overseeing the first two. The Mark and the Void is a satirical, fictional account of the banking practices which contributed to the debacle. It takes place primarily at the International Financial Services Center, a section of Dublin which functions as a tax haven for multinational corporations. The novel’s protagonist, Claude Martingale, works as an analyst for the Bank of Torabundo. He has virtually no life outside of the bank, no family, friends, or other interests. Mysteriously, into his life walks a writer named Paul. Paul has been surreptiously watching Claude and has decided that Claude will make a perfect protagonist for a book he is planning to write about an Everyman, separated from friends and family and working at a bank. Paul’s description of an Everyman is also a description of an ideal mark or con. Paul has no intention of writing the book, but rather is looking for a way out of his own financial troubles by robbing the bank. Claude seems totally naïve to Paul’s intentions for a good part of the book, and even when he finally learns of Paul’s intentions he remains ingenious of him. The banking plot provides fertile ground for Murray’s talents as a writer and recalls to the reader Murray’s previous novel, the critically acclaimed “Skippy Dies”, reviewed in IAN several years ago. My issues with the book are twofold: there is too much going on, the plot‐lines themselves eating themselves, diversions into anthropology, skit on the literary world and other hard to fathom messes. Then there is the length of the book: 459 pages, which is much too long in this reviewer’s opinion. While I generally liked “Skippy Dies”, I rate The Mark and the Void only a MIDDLE SHELF read.

IRISH AMERICAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE JOHN WALSH JERSEY SHORE CHAPTER 2016 IRISH CULTURE EVENTS SCHEDULE SEA GIRT LIGHTHOUSE 7 PM

1/11/16 KEVIN WESTLEY IRISH CHRISTMAS

2/8/16 MICHEAL O’MAILLE CRASH COURSE IRISH LANGUAGE

3/14/16 MICHEAL O’MAILLE 1916

4/11/16 LEANN SULLIVAN POET, TOURING FROM IRELAND

5/9/16 HENRY McNALLY REBELLION TO REPUBLIC 3

6/13/16 HENRY McNALLY REBELLION TO REPUBLIC 4

7/11/16

8/8/16

9/12/16

10/10/16

11/14/16

12/12/16